ancre Le Rochefort by No Idea - 1/24th Scale - First POF Build

[mtaylor]

I'm happy to see this log also.  I think it'll be a big help to anyone else who builds her.

[No Idea]

Thanks for the comments 👍

 

I've now completed the keelson assembly or the patience tester as its now called in my home 🤣

 

So many joints on 4 pieces of wood that as I have found have to be spot on or it will just not fit.  Making the parts was not too hard but getting them to fit takes literally hours.  I didn't have to remove too much material to do this I just had to work out where to remove it from.  This was for me one of those jobs where it would be far too easy to remove loads of wood and end up with bad joints.

 

Cutting the notches in the curved part of the keelson was interesting as its so easy to loose the correct angle of the cut.  I found that the best way of doing this was to mill out the vertical angles first with a 1mm end mill and then remove the centre afterwards.

 

I was also amazed at just how little glue is required to hold the whole assembly in place.  Because its such a high fit I only used a very small amount which was great as there was virtually no clean up to do.

 

I do have one small issue - I just could not get the keelson to get fully down towards the stern.  I have a small gap of less than 1mm so I really need some opinions on this.  Do I just leave it as it is or should I make up some filler out of PVA and sawdust to fill the gap?  Its a bit too small I think to successfully put slivers of wood in but I would appreciate others thoughts.  I also still need to make a piece to fill the gap between the apron and the first frame but that's my next job.  I cannot do any more work for two weeks as I've got family staying and they need my time but I'll get back on this when I can.

 

Cheers Mark

 

[dvm27]

Depending on the location of the high spot you could spot glue a strip of 120 grit sandpaper to the rising wood and deadwood. Gently rub the underside of the keelson over its position until the gap disappears. Just a few passes, reassess, then a few passes until you creep up on it. This worked well for me. But in all honestly this gap will be invisible in the finished model.

[Hubac's Historian]

Just venturing a guess, here:  because the gap is so consistent, I am wondering whether your problem resides at the very ends - the vertical timbers; perhaps the whole assembly is just fractionally over-long.  I also may not be understanding whether you have glued-in the keelson, in which case, you are really looking for in-fill advice. 

[No Idea]

Hi both and thanks for your thoughts on this.  The keelson is now glued in as this was as low as I could get it after many hours of fettling it to fit. I felt that I had reached the point where if I removed anymore material I would make the gap wider rather than smaller.  Having slept on this and taking Greg’s point I think I’m going to leave this for the time being.  I’ll see how I feel at a later date as after all there is no rush. I have to be honest it actually fitted better than I thought that it would 😎

[No Idea]

Now I know what I said but this little gap has been doing my head in 🤣  So today my truck decided to breakdown so its a day off from work for me!!

 

So I decided to make the thin little shims to fill the gaps and I'm glad that I have.  I've not cleaned anything up yet so the pictures are just the shims glued in and trimmed to length with a chisel.  I'm glad to say that I am "gapless" now and the average shim was 0.6mm thick.  I only had to put one shim up at the stem.  I think it will look better with a good sanding too.

 

At some point I really need to have a good clean up of the entire hull but I'll wait until I've closed the bow and the stern.

 

I can now sleep soundly at night; it can't just be me that dwells on these things -  Back to the family now too!

 

Cheers Mark

 

 

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Are you shure, that this is your first scracth build? It looks really nice. I love th big scale of your model, which gives you the possibility to show small details.

[No Idea]

5 minutes ago, AnobiumPunctatum said:

Are you shure, that this is your first scracth build? It looks really nice. I love th big scale of your model, which gives you the possibility to show small details.

 

Yep it sure is - my last build was a kit which I think I changed about 85% of it to try and make it better.  A radio controlled live steam powered Italian tug.

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Like all good repairs, yours will be un-detectable when the model is finished - sooner, even, after a sanding.  I was losing sleep over small gaps of my own before I finally decided to fill them because I knew that I should, even if it made more paint work for me.  Well done!

[dvm27]

Even though the gaps would be imperceptible on the finished model you have set an excellent precedent for future work. if you neglect a small detail that's not to your liking now it becomes easier to ignore the next one...and the one after that. I think you'll be very pleased with this model, no matter how long it takes.

[No Idea]

Not a detailed update this weekend as I've still not had much time on my hands.  I've made the infill piece between the first frame and the apron which completes the whole keelson assembly.

 

I don't know how everyone else gets the shapes for pieces like this but I've found masking tape to be a winner.  I just put it in place and then use a pencil to get the outside shape.  Then simply cut it and sand it to the shape until it fits.

 

I'm moving onto the hawse timbers next but I need to get my head around how they all fit together first.  I'll take the plans to work so I can be ready for next weekend and hopefully make some serious sawdust  

 

Mark

 

[mtaylor]

Looks good.  And as many of us know, masking tape is your friend.

[druxey]

I find Scotch Matte Removable tape even better than masking tape for the purpose.

[Hubac's Historian]

Out of curiosity, Druxey, what are the particular advantages of Matte scotch tape?

[druxey]

It is see-through, peels off easily and has a matte surface that takes a fine pencil line.

[Hubac's Historian]

Noted.  Thank you.

[No Idea]

Hi everyone - I need some help from you please as I'm a bit confused.  As you know interpreting drawings is not my strongest point and I would appreciate your opinions on the attached drawing.  I'm not sure about the filler pieces between the vertical hawse timbers.

 

I think that the drawing says that as the filler pieces go down towards the keel they taper slightly so that they are thinner at the bottom than the top.  It looks like its only a slight taper or is it an optical illusion??  I've reached the point where I'm confusing myself so all advice/comments will be very welcome.  If they do taper I can take the measurements from the plan but I just wanted to check before I start.

 

Sorry about the lack of updates but I bought a new dust extractor and I'm still waiting for an adaptor to make it fit my machines.  It should be here next week and there's no way I'm using them with any kind of extraction.

 

Thanks all - Mark

[Hubac's Historian]

I will be interested to know the answer to this, as well.

[druxey]

You will need to set up the hawse timbers, mark out the lines of the filling pieces and individually fit them between the timbers without pushing them out of alignment. Have fun!

[Dziadeczek]

I wouldn't worry too much about the filling pieces now. Make all hawse frames first and make sure they all fit and that their external surfaces are smooth (inner surfaces will later be smoothed). And only then try to make those fillers, carefully  sanding down their thicknesses to fit to the available spaces in between the hawse frames.

I too had a hard time making them for my "Frenchie" (of course, later on I bought the addendum brochure from Ancre with all profiles of the missing frames, including the hawse timbers, but it was already after I managed to shape them all by myself from the waterlines). Tough luck...

Edited October 16, 2021 by Dziadeczek

[No Idea]

16 hours ago, druxey said:

You will need to set up the hawse timbers, mark out the lines of the filling pieces and individually fit them between the timbers without pushing them out of alignment. Have fun!

Thanks druxey I had a feeling that would be the answer.  I'll just have to take my time and try and get them right

 

14 hours ago, Dziadeczek said:

I wouldn't worry too much about the filling pieces now. Make all hawse frames first and make sure they all fit and that their external surfaces are smooth (inner surfaces will later be smoothed). And only then try to make those fillers, carefully  sanding down their thicknesses to fit to the available spaces in between the hawse frames.

I too had a hard time making them for my "Frenchie" (of course, later on I bought the addendum brochure from Ancre with all profiles of the missing frames, including the hawse timbers, but it was already after I managed to shape them all by myself from the waterlines). Tough luck...

 

Thanks for the help Dziadeczek much appreciated.

[Hubac's Historian]

If you haven’t already found this log, yourself, Matiz’s frame-up for his HMS Euryalus is a remarkable piece of work, and it shows the bow framing in super-clear detail:

 

 

[Kevin]

that is some very clean tidy work very well done

 

[No Idea]

Hi all

 

Sorry for the lack of updates I've been busy doing other things so the build is taking a bit of a back seat just for the moment.

 

I have to admit I really have had problems getting my head around the drawings for the hawse timbers.  I've been looking at Adrian Sorolla's book and it seemed to me that his pictures really didn't quite match the plans by Gerard.  So I've been going around in circles trying to get a working understanding.

 

My conclusion is that Adrian very cleverly simplified the design slightly for ease of build.  The first hawse timber is very slender and requires a very accurate taper of 16.9 degrees to set the rest of the timbers up.  I think that Adrian left this first timber fairly flat and then sanded the shape both inside and out once built.

 

So what with me being one for a bit of self punishment I decided to follow the plans to the letter.  This obviously meant that I had to cut this taper into hawse timber one.  At first I tried sanding this taper but failed as the timber becomes so thin that the end kept on breaking off.  So I knew that it had to be machined and I eventually solved this problem.

 

I purchased a cheap angle meter for £12 which has proven invaluable for this job.  I also made a very simple jig for the mill vice which to my surprise actually worked with a bit of double sided tape.

 

Anyway I now have 3 of the 5 hawse timbers lined up on the starboard side.  I have held the timbers temporarily together with some 1mm brass rod which I will swap out for wood when it comes to gluing the whole assembly together.  I want to glue it together but not to the hull so that I can sand it into shape off of the ship.

 

Some pictures below which probably explain it all better than my words.  I'm glad that I'm moving forward again and I'm much better now at interpreting drawings now - well until the next problem!

 

Mark

 

[TBlack]

Beautiful joinery! You could stop right now and be way ahead of the game!

[popash42]

Dear Mark 

There is no doubt that your professional and accurate work is simply inspiring and I have learned a lot from it. well done 

[WalrusGuy]

Beautiful joinery! Very inspirational work 🙂

[No Idea]

Thanks for the really nice comments 😀

 

I've now fitted the last two hawse timbers on the starboard side.  Timber number 5 is a sliver of a timber (try saying that without putting on a pirate accent 😆).   The spacers had to be tapered and I had to pretty much guess their location by eye but I think it looks ok.

 

I've also taken out the brass rod and replaced it with treenails and its all glued together.  When the time comes I've a lot of excess wood to remove before I even start shaping it but at least its straight.

 

The tricky bit starts next weekend and that's  trying to replicate it on the port side

 

Cheers Mark

 

[EricWilliamMarshall]

Stunning work and true perseverance! Thanks so much for sharing it with us all!

[No Idea]

On 11/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, EricWilliamMarshall said:

Stunning work and true perseverance! Thanks so much for sharing it with us all!

Thanks very much Eric 😃

 

Now for a change of plan yet again.  After having built up the starboard side I couldn't quite see how hawse frame 1 blended into hawse frame 2.

 

I wasn't sure whether I had built them correctly so I decided to roughly fair these parts first.  This was a bit harder than I thought that it would be due to the parts being quite flimsy added with a lot of material that needed removing.  I removed 90% of the material from the hawse timbers off of the ship which meant that I had to try and imagine the finished shape. 

 

It's one of those jobs that just seem to make sense as you remove material. I'm glad to say that all looks ok.

 

I've not taken it back to its final finish I'll do that when the outside of the entire hull is faired.  Mind you what a mess I made of the square holes on the hawse timbers.  They are all different sizes and I could have done better.  I now need to replicate these odd holes on the other side  

 

Now that I know that I'm on the right track the port side will be next

 

Cheers Mark